The Complete Poems and Plays of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628), in Two Volumes: v. I Coelica Mustapha Alaham

Description

This title presents for the first time the full texts of Lord Brooke. The availability of these texts will initiate a new perspective in Sixteenth-Century Studies; a process already begun with the author's introduction. Fulke Greville is one of the most enigmatic of the Elizabethans. He served three monarchs - Elizabeth, James and Charles - achieving high office in the state and amassing considerable wealth. The contrast between the worldliness of his career and the inwardness of his poetry has led to theories of 'the dualism of Fulke Greville', but the explanation lies rather in the development of his thought.Taking up verse as one of the accomplishments of the courtier, Greville ventured on the sonnet sequence "Coelica" (written concurrently with Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella"), but came out on the other side. He turned next to the Senecan play, and in "Mustapha" and "Alaham" dramatized various subversive political viewpoints, and made the Senecan chorus an instrument of reflection and debate. An anonymous and unauthorized text of "Mustapha" was published in 1609.
From the choruses of the plays developed the first of the verse treatises, "A Treatise of Monarchy", an exercise in Realpolitik. The issues encountered but not resolved in "Monarchy" led to a further set of treatises, showing Greville's deepening moral vision and his exploration of the treatise as an art form. His confidence that the state may be reformed, if the right policies are adopted ("Monarchy"), yields finally to a loss of faith in human institutions altogether.